Back in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, an unlikely and outrageous figurehead or living icon of pure individuality emerged from the nightclub scene, the alternative zine network and the art world, reigning as a supreme being of unapologetic freakishness, a fearless punk rock D.I.Y. attitude and visionary artistic talent served up with unbridled rebellion to a place where high and low art collide, perplex and glow with new power and high praise in the art world This person was Jerome Caja, that super-skinny and tall long-haired guy who was always dressed in tattered lingerie and go-go dancing at Club Uranus. In fact, if you walked by the go-go rise on any random night there, he quite possibly kicked you in the head or jumped on you or got dragged out the side door and thrown into a dumpster by DJ Michael Blue. He’d always get right back up there. He was unstoppable.
Outside of the nightclub he was a lovely, gentle person with friendly eyes and a smile for everyone, unless that smile was being stretched while he was on his knees at Father Frank’s Sex Church, the back of My Place, any available glory hole or Buena Vista Park at night. He was always ready to share a joint and a late night stroll up at Collingwood Park, too. Thats where I first became acquainted with him – there, and at The Giraffe on Polk Street, as he was a towel boy at a health club near-by and would often have a drink there after work.
But it was on a Hayes street bus where I first learned he was an artist. He was sitting near the back painting with fingernail polish on a few different pieces, all of them fitting conveniently into an empty cigarette pack as the bus approached his stop. I asked him why he used nail polish, and he replied, “Because you never have to wash the brushes.” Eventually Jerome was having art openings at a slew of esteemed galleries around town, getting amazing reviews in lofty art magazines like Art Forum, and his reputation as an aggressive and rebellious student at the Art Institute preceded him. When an instructor insisted that his works of art were too small, he responded by painting his assignments on pistachio shells. He was very truculent about getting his money’s worth from such an expensive art school.
He would have a gallery showing featuring as many as 107 separate pieces when many artists would open with a dozen or so larger paintings. He would paint on found objects and garbage, tip trays, band aids, bottle-caps, condoms and larger pieces on paper, often framed garishly and rendered mostly in nail enamel, make-up, eyeliner pencil, blood stains, pencil, white out, gold leaf, the ashes of his close friend, cigarettes, fake alligator skin and more. He even saved toenail clippings and spray-mounted them on paper and painted on them.
The subject matter of his paintings were often biblical or mythological, laden with symbolic images of himself, modern appliances, eggs, birds, clowns, smiley faces and more, often recurring through a small series, or re-imagined biblical events like The Immaculate Conception with the virgin Mary surrounded by angels ,with the red, white and blue faces of Bozo The Clown, just like her own, or the Last Handjob, or the stunning self portraiture of The Birth of Venus in Cleveland or The Holy Spirit getting new eyes for Saint Lucy or Rape of the Altar Boy or Bozo Fucks Death or Bozo Venus peeing on a Burning Bush. His works could be viewed as highly blashphemous, yet with an enduring sense of humor, more so than a bitter mockery of a Catholic up-bringing (he came from a Catholic family of 11 sons in Cleveland, Ohio) or a sensationalist shock value aimed at stirring up controversey in the art world, a trick many artists were enjoying advanced amounts of attention for around that time.
In fact I, learned on a special visit to his home that he had a cache of works that he said he never shared with “Those people from the MOMA or The Whitney when they come around to see my art,” so success in the art world was not a huge priority, and in a sense he was a reluctant Art Star, never revealing himself in a complete sense, not sharing every aspect and facet of his work and personality. He stood as a symbol to many of us that you could indeed be a truly unusual individual and do things your way all the way and eventually attain the sweetness of recognition and respect in a world that would rather not deal with or even feared certain aspects of your outrageous existence.
It was such a joy to witness Jerome at his first opening at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (before they moved it), wearing a complete set of perriwinkle lingerie, bra, panties garter stockings and yards of matching tule, and talking to wealthy patrons of the arts in their chanel jackets and Edward Scissorhands haircuts, asking about the religious imagery in his work, only to interrupt them and plop down on the floor in an ocean of tule for a photo opportunity.
I remember one year when Jerome took part in a multiple night performance piece that took place over a period of four days near Easter. It began on a Thursday night at Chaos for a re-enactment of the Last Supper, then on Friday at Screw, Jerome carried a cross into the club on his back, a huge cross that I feared would topple or crush him, where it was planted on the dance floor and he was crucified as Miss Jesus. For $3 you could have a Polaroid taken with him. Then finally on Easter Sunday at Uranus, Jesus rose from the tomb erected on the go-go rise, wiped his stigmata stained hands on a calalillie and parted the sheer curtains of his tomb, acting disdainfully to the gathered throng attending his resurrection.
We certainly had some fun with Jerome back then, and I was wondering if anyone still has their Polaroids with Jesus from that night. I know I do, seeing as how letter-writers to this very paper have speculated more than once over the years that I must have been abused by a member of the clergy at an early age to have created such an active hatred of organised religion. Truth be known, I figured it all out on my own without the help of any pervert priests trying to steal my childhood away. Jerome’s artistic vision always made complete sense to me. Thank you Miss Jesus, purest of all icons.
There was a great book published by Bastard Books called Jerome: after The Pageant written by Adam Klein and Thomas Avena that gives tremendous insight into the artist and his works. Look for it on Amazon or somewhere. It’s a treasure.